This article was updated October 7 to incorporate comments from Light & Wonder’s CEO about next steps.
We previously reported on Dragon Train and the lawsuit filed by Aristocrat claiming its similarities to its game Dragon Link. A recent court decision has blocked Light & Wonder from installing Dragon Train slots within the United States as the case proceeds, and it’s reported Light & Wonder will remove existing installs by October 24.
This yielded a question from a player about what this all means:
Is it true Dragon Train is getting sued by Dragon Link due to its similarities? And if they win will the machines have to pay out the progressives promised before shutting them down?
Kyla S.
We’ve answered the first question above – the lawsuit by Aristocrat (maker of Dragon Link) against Light & Wonder (maker of Dragon Train) is proceeding, and the injunction against Dragon Train indicates a strong chance Aristocrat would win the case.
Light & Wonder will probably appeal, so this won’t be a quick resolution, but for now it does appear Dragon Train, at least in its current form, will be sidelined. In a statement recently made by Light & Wonder CEO Matt Wilson, a second version of Dragon Train is in development that will resolve the issues raised in court, and is a high priority for the company.
As far as the progressives on the machines, regulations already have that sort of situation handled, which we’ve covered here in the past. Casinos are allowed to take the progressives accumulated on one machine and move them to another, or award the amount out to players in other ways such as contests or drawings.
This provision helps them in times like this, similar to when a machine has to be taken out of service for other reasons – too old to fix, the game is no longer available (especially if it’s a leased/premium machine), or they just want to replace it with something else.
Casinos don’t have the right to decommission a machine and keep the progressive funds – that’s effectively a haircut on the slot’s payout and not something gaming commissions provide casinos the opportunity to do. If a casino doesn’t want to pay out a progressive, it can just freeze a progressive from incrementing, and there’s plenty of examples of this in bigger markets like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
So that’s where we are as of right now, but the situation has been evolving pretty quickly, so more news is likely to come before too long. But for now, you can expect Dragon Train as it currently exists to disappear from casinos in the coming weeks. Whether it comes back in its current form, or an adjusted form, remains to be seen.
Have a question? Submit yours here!
I find it interesting that Dragon Train is much too like Dragon Link in Aristocrat’s opinion. What about all of the hold n spin type slots that came about after Lightning Link or “Bag game” types slots after Fu Di Lian Lian? I wonder if Aristocrat sued all those makers that were actually more like their games than Dragon Train is IMHO.
Hey Karen – it’s pretty common for general ideas to be copied, but as we noted in this review, there’s some things that just are a bit too literal of a carryover. It’s a high bar to clear to prove this sort of IP theft, so the fact this case looked pretty strong shows you how close it game in key ways, at least during an initial review by a judge (nothing has been decided at trial yet).